Ta Ta Tahiti!

Serendipity
David Caukill
Fri 4 May 2012 06:05

Thursday 3rd May: South Pacific Ocean 17 28.00S  149 43.0W  On passage for Huahine

Today’s Blog by David(Time zone UTC -10.00;  BST-11.00)

 

Cap’ Dave’s birthday passed uneventfully save for lots of chocolate and a big Calzone pizza  (as if I was short of calories!) over dinner with the crew from Anastasia. (Cake mix worked well!)

 

Saturday saw us up sticks and head to Moorea,  a Pacific paradise destination … and it is just so ………..  provided you like you own company.  As far as we could divine in both Cooks Bay and Oponohu Bay while there are plenty of des res houses and short term lets there are very few shops, fewer restaurants (save in the one or two resort hotels) and no bars or night life (ditto).   A nice place for a honey moon!

 

We returned to Pape’ete, Tahiti on  Tuesday for more repairs.   Hmm, since we arrived in French Polynesia we have – in common with all cruisers - spent time waiting for then fitting parts. Before HF email, we would have had to arrive in a destination before diagnosis, contact the UK by fax and phone and then endure  the interminable  wait for parts to arrive by whatever carriage the cruiser is prepared to pay for.   Even express courier (DHL/FedEx etc.) takes at least a week from the UK but much of it was waiting for us on arrival.  Since we have arrived in French Polynesia we have:

 

1                     Replaced the main sail furler swivel (H)

2                     Repaired the starboard primary winch (E)

3                     Had the mainsail repaired (where the furler swivel had damaged it) (E – because paid someone to do it)

4                     Replaced the pole up haul (chafed through – resulting in rig on deck one night past)(E)

5                     Replaced the spinnaker halyard (chafed by a poor rivet on the mast exit sheave) (E)

6                     Had the shackle spliced onto the above (E – because paid someone to do it)

7                     Replaced said rivet (E – because paid someone to do it)

8                     Replaced the blocks/sheeves off the main steering quadrant (M)

9                     Replaced a freezer compressor (no freezer for 6 weeks) (E – because Oyster paid someone to do it)

10                 Fitted a modification to the fridge to try to stop is spilling water on the floor (E)

11                 Searched for and sourced two leaks in the coach roof(M)

12                 Fitted Bus Bars to the battery bank (these were replaced in Panama but needed Bus bars to spread the load)(M)

13                 Rechocked the  mast –This had come unchecked at the partners on passage to Marquesas. This latter was a permanent (I hope)  fix of the temporary repair we had done at sea but involved slackening and then tightening the standing rigging. (H)

14                 Fitted a new VHF set (E)

15                 Sent Bob up and down the mast at least 8 times for various things – including  four times to try to locate the source of a broken spilt pin that we had found on deck (without success, hmmm).

16                 Fitted two bleed kits to stop airlocks forming in the raw water strainers for the water maker and engine/genset. This latter airlock meant that the genny ran dry for the few seconds it took to suck the head of water into the genset. That running dry was trashing impellers every 100 genset hours. (M)

 

Key:  H – Hard, M – Moderate ( and fiddly)  and E – Easy

 

That’s about all I can recall at the moment but there have been many other more – too numerous to mention -  routine maintenance items that have needed attention.  Many of them we have attended to.

 

Despite this, we did see quite bit of Pape’ete (the principal town in Tahiti  - indeed the capital of French Polynesia). Simone mentioned the Island tour in her blog.

 

It is a refreshing place; after weeks of scratching around small island with supplies limited to those that the last ship delivered, you can buy  virtually anything here (as long as you have the money to pay for it - most things are hideously expensive -  and can wait for it to be delivered, assuming it is required to be imported).  It is also very French – the Carrefour could have been in Calais or Marseilles – and the influence of France in the infrastructure remains evident everywhere.  However, the architecture was not in the least attractive –were more reminiscent of post war Berlin than reflective of a colonial past. So – something of a curate’s egg.

 

So we have left Tahiti. Right now (touch wood) everything material on the boat is working. We were last in this happy state for three days after departure from Galapagos -  until we trashed the starboard primary winch – before that only  for about seven days after our departure from St Lucia!

 

We are now on passage to Huahine, one of group of four islands - the western most in French Polynesia -  including Bora Bora- from there it is Suwarrow, Nuie and then Tonga by the end  of  the month!  The wind is a little light, but behind the beam, the moon is full and morale is good!

 

Bon Nuit!